News

McLaren Automotive, the high performance sports car manufacturer based at the home of McLaren’s world-famous Formula 1 racing team, has announced further details on its Middle East plans. The company has confirmed that it is seeking retailers in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE in the countdown to the 2011 launch of the first in its range of next-generation road cars.

Arabian Automobiles, the exclusive dealer for Nissan, Infiniti and Renault in Dubai and the Northern Emirates is enhancing its services with the introduction of Extended Warranty and Guaranteed Asset Protection (GAP) insurance to its customer base in the UAE.

Alex Renner Motors (ARM), the dedicated Porsche service, bodywork and tuning specialist garage based in Dubai, is starting the summer with a new promotion to allow all Porsche owners to take advantage of some very special respray prices, including a complete colour change for only Dhs 13,000.

As pointed out by Akif, one of our readers, a real photo of the 2010 Toyota Land Cruiser Prado has been leaked onto the internet. The photo appears to be real, and has “internal use only” marked across it.

In an embarrassingly desperate move by struggling supercar-maker Aston Martin, the Kuwaiti-owned British company has developed a new luxury commuter concept, dubbed the Cygnet. Named after a baby swan, the mini-car directly bases itself on the Euro-spec Toyota iQ, but with a slant towards more luxury.

The Mercedes-Benz ML 63 AMG is among the fastest 4x4s in the world. It held the title of world’s fastest-accelerating SUV for a while, but then the ugly Porsche Cayenne Turbo S took over the mantle this year. However, such statistics are too close to call. A difference in weather and road conditions was enough to change our 0-100 kph acceleration numbers. In this summer test, we couldn’t top the numbers we got from our Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT-8 winter test. It is therefore better to judge a vehicle by its overall merits.

The previous version of the Honda Stream was briefly available in the UAE, offering minivan space in the body of a tall wagon, but it was cancelled a long time ago. The latest version of the Stream is going strong in Japan though, and Honda is offering a Mugen body kit for it, in true Honda-fanboy fashion.

OffRoad-Zone, a 4×4 specialist company in Dubai, is organising a free 4×4 driving event at its testing facility in Jebel Ali for those affected by the bankruptcy of BlueBanana.com, whose owner did a runner recently.